Have you ever taken the time to imagine all the things that have to happen to rub your nose? Or move from a laying down to a sitting position? Or to walk upright? Any of the above activities requires a carefully coordinated operation of multiple parts; nerves, bones, tendons, and muscles. The majority of these moving parts is muscle.
The largest part of the human body is muscle. There are more than 600 muscles in the human body. Just think of all the things we do with our muscles, pucker our lips, blink our eyes, chew our food, push the food around our mouth with our tongue, and move food through our gut. It takes about a hundred different muscles just to stand up. Muscles we almost never think about is the heart and the diaphragm. Just a few minutes without their movement and life would cease.
Muscles work with tendons and bones. They are attached to your bones by very strong cords called tendons. When you do any movement, the brain sends a signal to the muscle to make it contract (get shorter). As the muscle gets shorter it pulls the tendon attachments to move the bones closer, for example, bend your arm. The “skeletal” muscles move the skeleton bones, mostly in an open and close process.
“Smooth” muscles work without bones. They can contract and relax to push food through the gut while grinding it into digestible parts. They also help focus the eye.
Then there is a special muscle called the heart. It is a special muscle as it is involuntarily beating on its own, pumping blood throughout the body.
Just to maintain the muscle mass requires about 40% of the energy available each day. This energy comes from food, protein, carbohydrates, and fats. Childhood is a time for building muscles, while the elderly need to maintain or rebuild muscle tissue they have lost. In both, they need to eat a balanced diet sufficient in protein-rich foods like chicken, fish, eggs or beans.
When exercising, the muscle gets tiny tears (sore muscles) and the body repairs those tears and builds new, stronger muscles. The daily recommendation for physical activity in children older than 6 is at least 60 minutes per day. Active play is best option. Aerobic exercises use the body’s large muscle groups and include brisk walking, bike riding, dancing, hiking, rollerblading, basketball, tag, jumping rope, swimming, soccer, tennis and martial arts.
Muscle-strengthening activities could include tug-of-war, push-ups, swinging, and tree or rope climbing. Resistance training that involves the use of weight machines, free weights, bands and tubing and even the body’s own weight increases the individual’s muscle strength. This is not recommended for pre-teens and all need trained supervision. Olympic lifting or power lifting is not recommended for children. Check with your pediatrician before starting any strength training exercises.
All activities should be appropriate for their age and fun. Variety helps.
Remember it is HOT and water needs to be available.
Sally Robinson, MD Clinical Professor
Also see: Pediatric Primary Care